


Close Shave

by idelthoughts



Series: Tumblr Ask Box Fic [7]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 10:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3606837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry had gotten used to facial hair after all these years.  So had everyone else who knew him, and nothing is going to get done until he grows it back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Shave

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr for the prompt:
> 
> _Henry shows up to work clean shaven one day, and the various reactions of everyone to it (including Reece, who maybe kind of likes it?)_

Henry looked at himself in the mirror, running a hand over the trimmed bristles on his chin, tilting his head to the side to get a look. He popped the guard off the electric razor, ready to clear away the out of place stubble— _neck beard_ , as Lucas so aptly called it—when the bathroom door slammed open and he jerked, the razor scraping his chin in a long line.

“Oops, didn’t know you were in here,” Abe said, backing up. “Sorry about that—ooh.”

Abe grimaced at Henry in the mirror as Henry stared with dismay at the neatly shorn bald streak up the side of his chin, straight through the rest of the hair. He glared at Abe’s reflection.

“Sorry,” Abe said again. 

 

***

Some minutes later, after a session with shaving cream and a straight razor that he’d not used in years, Henry emerged from the bathroom clean-shaven and feeling a little naked. 

“Wow, haven’t seen you without a beard in a long time.” Abe popped a breakfast plate on the table for him, and Henry sat down. “Little weird, I gotta say. Do the hair part again and it’s just like the fifties all over again.”

“Yes, I think I will draw the line at shaving, thank you. At least it will grow back quickly.” He reached for the butter. “I’ve become accustomed to it myself, it does feel a little strange.”

“Ah, nobody’ll even notice,” Abe said, waving a dismissive hand. 

 

***

 

“Your face just looks…wrong,” Hanson said, staring at him. “All shiny.” He leaned to one side and stared at Henry’s left cheek, then rocked the opposite way to look at his other side. “And I thought you looked straight edge before.”

“I dunno, I think he’s got kind of a Cary Grant thing going on,” Lucas chimed in, leaning across the open chest of the corpse on the slab to wave his hands up and down to indicate Henry’s whole body. His eyes lit up. “Ooh, you should do the thing with the hair, you know—part it, do the slicked Ward Cleaver hair thing?”

“Who is Ward Cleaver?” Henry asked with a tired sigh. “Not that I even know _why_ I’m asking.”

“You know, fifties TV dad?” Lucas looked at Hanson, and then pointed. “Actually, his hair is kind of—“

“Hey!” Hanson snapped, running a hand along the side of head. “There is nothing wrong with my hair!”

“Oh—oh, no, I didn’t—“

“Alright!” Henry said loudly, intervening in the escalating conversation. “Shall we get on with the autopsy debriefing?”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, go for it,” Hanson said, pulling out his notebook, then looking at Henry again from beneath lowered brows. “Sorry, it’s just… It’ll grow back soon, right?”

Henry sure as hell hoped so.

 

***

Jo had her head tipped to the side in the fashion of a dog puzzled by a high sound, and it was frozen there are she squinted at him from behind her desk. 

“Are you quite done?” Henry prodded, letting his hands drop. She’d obviously not heard a single word he’d said the entire time he’d been standing there. 

“Nope, not over it yet,” Jo said, still staring at him. “Jeez, Henry. You look like you should be on Wall Street ripping people off with Ponzi schemes or something. The clean shaven thing is too weird.”

“Yes, I’m getting that impression,” Henry said through gritted teeth. 

 

***

 

By the end of the day when Henry was standing in the interrogation room observation area and Lieutenant Reece entered behind him, he was already prepared for the inevitable.

“So our lead suspect was found with powder burns on his hands but you figure he’s not our guy?” Reece said, cutting straight to the chase as soon as she opened the door.

“No, I don’t believe he is,” Henry said, turning to meet her.

Reece didn’t bat an eye, or so much as acknowledge that—well, that a hair was out of place, so to speak. She came to stand next to him at the one way glass. 

“Hm. He’d better have a convincing alibi, then.”

Jo and Hanson on the other side of the glass had their suspect talking, and Henry stood quietly with Reece, occasionally glancing towards her. After a day of fielding goggling stares wherever he went, it was unnerving to find himself ignored.

“Do you have a question, Doctor Morgan?”

“No,” he said, tucking his hands behind his back.

Reece turned to look at him, then lazily inspected him up and down, before raising an eyebrow at him. She turned back to the glass. 

“It suits you.”

“Er, thank you.” Henry rocked on his toes, a little surprised.

“I much prefer men clean shaven.” Henry’s head whipped around, but she was focused on the glass, a faint upturn to the corner of her mouth the only concession to any expression at all. “Can’t stand beard burn.”

She had him on the back foot, and it took him a moment to recover, in which time she adopted a faint smirk. He tipped his head towards her with a wry smile.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I imagine you will,” Reece said. “But grow it back. Because if I have to listen to one more damned conversation about your facial hair today, I am going to fire someone.”

Henry chuckled. 

“Yes ma’am,” Henry said.


End file.
